Divine Divinity was released in 2002. It didn't turn many heads or stick out in any way. In general, it was a mediocre RPG that garnered little attention. Because of this, it was a surprise to find Divinity II: Ego Draconis on the show floor at PAX. It was even more of a surprise that Chris and I couldn't stop playing it.

"...Chris and I couldn't stop playing it."

We loaded a random save in the game and got right into it. No one was around to assist us, which is sometimes how we like it. With Chris offering "tips" and me at the controls, we took right to the air. The heroine of the game can turn into a dragon, even in mid-fall. I flew off toward the towers tossing arrows and begin to burn them down. There was no inertia in flying, so I was a dodging machine. That is, until I backed up into one of those anti-dragon shields and was cut down in a matter of seconds.

Undiscouraged, I restarted the same save and made sure not to fly backwards. Using various flight tactics and trying to avoid incoming fire, I took down the ballista towers, but then couldn't figure out how to get to the big ones. In the end, I morphed back into female form and rushed in a random direction until I found two bad people. With few words exchanged, we battled and I came out on top, but their bosses were not pleased. I rejected their offers to join their evil ways and cut them down as well.

Then everything about the game world became weird. I enter a portal and found myself in the land of dark green. Everything has this eerie green hue; no other colors to be seen. I took to the air, because clearly there are other dragons in the area who are not pleased to see me. Thus begins a vicious aerial battle between tens of dragons and ballista and magical towers, and me. I decided it was time to learn my skills, because while the basic flame attack was good enough for round one, this would require a little more work. My skillbar on the bottom consists of flame attack, fireball, healing, some sort of shockwave attack, and something I never really figured out. Double clicking the right mouse would give me a burst of speed, good for breaking away and firing off the healing skill. I darted and weaved and finally took down quite a few dragons and towers before finally declaring the battle was won, since it was clear it wouldn't end.

I explored a bit on foot after that, climbing towers and killing monsters, but since it was clear that I was unkillable in the human form, it's not really a fair impression. We took out a boss, which I would have no idea how to kill normally, before calling it a day.

The graphics looked nice, but I couldn't hear the game, so I can't say how well the sound was. The skill system is more expansive than we first realized and there are no limits to how you want to build your character, be it a mage, warrior, healer, or a mixture. I am looking forward to see how balanced the ground combat is, because the aerial combat was exhilarating. I'll be keeping an eye out for more on this title.